Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

The Cook Islands censor has backtracked on its initial decision to ban Rocketman.

Instead, the Cook Islands Internal Affairs has followed the New Zealand censor’s classification and rated the film R18, reports Cook Islands News.

The censor announced the ban last week, after Samoa banned screenings of the film due to its homosexual content.

However, the announcement was met with public backlash, including a local lawyer threatening legal action if the ban were to go forward.

READ MORE: Israel Folau ‘misuses’ Bible to justify hatred, says Samoan Minister

A Cook Islands News editorial acknowledged Internal Affairs Secretary Anne Herman and Chief Censor Dennis Tangirere’s decision to cancel the ban.

“It’s difficult to do a public about-turn – we all know that. So Herman and Tangirere deserve acknowledgement for their willingness to listen to public opinion and reverse Internal Affairs’ initial position.”

Te Tiare Association secretary and LGBTI spokesperson Valery Wichman welcomed the about-turn from the Secretary of Internal Affairs reports the Cook Islands News.

“We were happy that it was not banned or condemned but rated 18,” she said.

Fundamental human rights
“This means that our fundamental human rights have been upheld. We can now enjoy another expression of art and a good story.” 

However, the owner of the empire cinema Kathleen Napa-Bergin claimed that she was not informed about Internal Affairs decision to cancel the ban.

The cinema has not screened the film since the censor’s request to pull it 10 days ago and as its license run has now ended, it is unlikely that it will be screened again.

Cook Islands News editor Jonathan Milne hopes that this will change.

 Special screening
“I hope Empire Cinema boss Pa Napa can somehow negotiate to bring it back for a special screening – and if he does, I’ll happily pay my 11 bucks to see it,” he wrote.

“Because, by all accounts, this is not a raunchy, sexual film.”

“If anything, it is an inspiring story of a young man’s triumph over the demons of drugs, alcohol and abuse.”

“It offers hope to young adults trying to make sense of who they are in a confusing world.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

A prominent Cook Islands lawyer intends to take a court challenge against the censor’s impending ban of the film Rocketman, reports the Cook Islands News.

Lawyer Heinz Matysik announced he would challenge the ban, if it proceeded.

“If the chief censor wants to roll this way, I will bring a full legal challenge and test the boundaries of our Constitution. I am serious,” he said.

READ MORE: Cook Islands to follow Samoa and ban Rocketman

Hundreds of people have already protested online, after Cook Islands News reported that chief censor Dennis Tangirere intended to ban Rocketman.

One LGBTQ community member on the island, Roger Dunfee, is mobilising his friends in California and around the world to overturn the ban.

Te Tiare Association president Regina Potini issued a pointed reminder that the Cook Islands Constitution provides for freedom of speech and expression.

“A prohibition of this film/work of art will impinge on this fundamental right guaranteed under the Cook Islands Constitution.”

Members of Te Tiare Assocation and the LGBTQ community have spoken out to express their concern, but also to show that the sentiments behind the ban are not representative of wider Cook Islands opinion.

Others, though, have taken to social media in grief or anger.

“Today I question my patriotic pride,” wrote Teherenui Koteka.

“The fact I belong to a community who in this day and age so outrightly marginalises the LGBTQ community, a community I am proud to be a part of, further illustrates why our country continuously fails to move forward in the modern day world stage.”

“This honestly makes me sad,” said Ally Donnerly. “If my country can’t accept a movie then how can they accept me?”

And Brenda said, “As a trans woman from Mangaia with a great career in aviation, I find it sad that we are not an evolving nation. More worried about your image in the Pacific than your people.”

The film, a biography of the English pop singer Elton John which depicts intimate gay sex scenes, had been showing at empire cinema for around seven days, but is believed to have been pulled from screening last Friday.

Tangirere spoke to Cook Islands News before the film was pulled, saying he was planning to ban Rocketman because it contained scenes of homosexuality.

The conservative Islamic nation of Egypt had already banned the film, and Samoa followed suit, saying the film did not “go well with the cultural and Christian beliefs of Samoa”.

News of the Cook Islands ban has made overseas headlines, and momentum against the ban is building rapidly.

“This is the wrong message that the Cook Islands wants to be sending the rest of the world” says Roger Dunfee, who postponed a flight to California to mobilise opposition to the ban.

Dunfee, who watched the movie last week, says the ban could have a “detrimental effect” on Cook Islands tourism.

“People are likely to just spend their money travelling somewhere else,” he says.

“There are kids now who see this as a complete disapproval of their lifestyle, of what they want to identify as, of who they really are,” he warns. “I know kids who have committed suicide because of these types of issues.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Tulia Thompson

A minister of a Pacific church in Auckland has spoken out against rugby star Israel Folau’s homophobic attack.

Samoan Minister Apelu Tielu from the Pacific Island Presbyterian Church has criticised Folau’s misuse of the Bible, saying Folau has used the Bible “as an excuse”.

Folau has defended his homophobic stance despite being fired by Rugby Australia after an independent panel found his social media posts were a “high level breach” of professional player conduct.

READ MORE: Israel Folau launches fresh attack on gay and transgender people

Folau posted a “warning” to his 313,000 Instagram followers which said “homosexuals” should repent or “hell awaits you,” and quoted Bible verses.

Reverend Apelu Tielu disagreed that Folau was merely stating his religious beliefs, saying that the Bible has historically been misused to justify acts of hate, including apartheid and slavery.

Instead, Tielu says that people need to understand the context that the Bible was written in, and that it is better to treat it as metaphoric rather than literal.

Tielu posted on facebook about Folau and has written an E-tangata article saying that Christianity is about “love, not judgment”.

Tielu’s faith as grown through the coming out of his pansexual daughter Amy, who he has described previously as “a blessing”.

Amy Tielu, 33, a Filipino-Samoan business analyst in Canberra, told her parents about her attraction to both men and women when she was 16, and is outspoken about being a queer christian.

“It’s not “God loves you in spite of this” it’s “God loves you including this part.””

While Folau has been fired by Rugby Australia, Amy Tielu would like to see reparations to the LGBTQI community for the harm done.

“I would like the $4 million from his contract invested into scholarships or something for LGBT rugby players.”

Amy Tielu hopes that Folau would reflect on his homophobic actions and “open his heart and mind to consider maybe God is trying to communicate something to him through these people he might have assumed are his enemies”.

While the Tielu family is Samoan, and Folau is Tongan, other Pacific people are also distancing themselves from Folau’s extreme views.

Leilani Tamu, a New Zealand-based Pacific social commentator of Tongan, Samoan and German descent, says her reaction to Folau’s social media post was “distress and upset for all the people I know his comments would have hurt directly.”

While Christian faith is central to Tamu’s identity, as it is for Folau, she says that there is a spectrum of views within Pacific communities.

Tamu believes Folau is misguided, saying, “Jesus never turned anyone away”.

Tulia Thompson is of Fijian, Tongan and Pakeha descent and is based in Aotearoa. She has a PhD in Sociology and is currently completing a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism at AUT.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz